Chapter 25: Aislin

Chapter 25: Aislin

“W

e’ll drive past the hotel first,” Everett said. “Just to make sure the pack evacuated.”

None of us had much to defend ourselves with other than our beast forms. To my surprise, Everett withdrew from his office two handguns that he kept in case of emergency. He gave one to me and kept one for himself, both of us donning holsters attached to our belts.

We piled into two vehicles and went straight to Grandbay. Those few minutes it took to cross through Eastpeak, unnervingly silent and still, felt like an eternity before we ventured into the wooded roads crossing between the towns, then reached the edge of my hometown. The waning moon sat high between thin cotton clouds in the midnight sky, stars twinkling in quiet ignorance of the turmoil unfolding below. At first, moonlight bathing the residential blocks and storefronts leading downtown made everything look unaffected, as though nothing was happening at all—but when Everett’s Lexus paused at a stop sign, the hollow pop of gunshots drove chills through all of us. We exchanged looks and Everett pushed on, failing to brake again until we’d arrived at the Grandbay Hotel.

A small crowd gathered on the street, rife with the sounds of distress. We pulled over and I stepped outside, my heart lurching at the smell of gunfire and blood. People stood around a couple of bodies on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, but even before seeing them I recognized who one of them was: Albin, the hotel owner. Everett and I pushed through until we reached his side, where people were trying to help Albin and a couple of humans who appeared to have been shot. Somebody was applying pressure to a wound in Albin’s stomach. He was still alive, but on his back and breathing roughly. His eyelids fluttered as he looked up at us. “Aislin,” rasped Albin.

I knelt beside him, panic making my voice bubble. “What happened?”

Albin lowered his voice for me. “A few minutes after Everett’s call, Dalesbloom showed up. We were still evacuating the hotel. Your mother got Muriel into a car, David and some of the dragons followed them. Gavin stayed behind to help get people to safety. They had guns… Everyone took off just before you got here.”

My breath snagged in my lungs. I searched the sidewalk, but if Gavin had been fatally wounded, he would still be here. “Did they still try to go to my parents’ place?”

“As far as I know,” said Albin.

Everett’s hand went to my shoulder. “We have to hurry.”

“Yeah.” I stood up.

“An ambulance is on the way,” Albin said to me from the ground. “Don’t worry about us here.”

With a nod, Everett and I returned to the car. If we’d been just a couple minutes faster, we might have stumbled right into the fight. I felt terrible leaving Albin behind, but I had to hope that the first responders would get him through this.

Turning off the main street in Grandbay, evidence of the fight was strewn all the way to my parents’ house. Black tire marks were scrawled across the pavement, bullet holes in the sides of buildings marking where David’s men had fired on my packmates. The night suddenly lit up in a lick of orange flame as we approached a car that had crashed into a streetlight. A body was slumped forward in the driver’s seat, glass embedded in his face—it was one of the dragons. Dead. He was the only person in the vehicle, which meant whoever was with him had gotten out to continue the pursuit. I couldn’t imagine what the police would make of the scene once they arrived.

A mile further, two more cars blocked the road. One of them I recognized as Gavin’s. My heart pounded in my ears as we pulled off to the side, and I scanned the darkness for more bodies but didn’t find them on the ground. Instead, three people emerged from the vehicles, moonlight glinting off their handguns. “That’s Everett March,” one of them exclaimed. “Kill him!”

The smell clinging to them, that of burning oil and pungent smoke, identified them as dragons.

Everett and I ducked, retreating behind our car. “Find another way around!” Everett shouted to his packmates from the other vehicle. Bullets crashed overhead and hit the second car as his packmates retreated, pulling away and leaving Everett, me, and two of his packmates to hide from the gunfire.

“We need to get rid of these guys,” I said.

“How good of a shot are you?” asked Everett.

“I’ve never fired a gun before,” I confessed. “But I’ll try.”

Everett clutched my arm. “Don’t expose too much of yourself. Fire once, then duck.”

“Got it.”

We both emerged from behind the car, me peeking out from behind a front tire and Everett over the trunk. I lined up my shot and fired, and to my dismay, the bullet sparked against the hubcap of the dragons’ car without hitting anyone. Everett’s shot hit one of the dragons in the shoulder. They shouted and dove out of the way, not expecting us to be armed.

After hiding again, I glanced at Everett. He didn’t even spare a glance my way, and instead was crouched in position, listening. Then he emerged, and I followed his cue.

Gunfire poured toward us. I yelped and recoiled in fear—getting shot at wasn’t something I was used to—but Everett held fast, ducking and then poking out to fire again. This time, I heard the anguished grunt of a dragon as he shot the man in the chest. “One down,” said Everett. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple.

On the next attempt, I fired and saw the gun fly out of my target’s hand. “Fuck!” the man shouted. Powerful excitement welled up in my stomach like a balloon ready to burst. I’d hit him! Then another bullet whizzed past my ear, leaving my head ringing as I ducked down. Footsteps hit the pavement. The two remaining men took their chances and rushed toward us, and Everett shot one of them in the ankle, sending him crashing down. “Let’s go,” he said, holstering his gun.

I’d never expected Everett to be such a good marksman. Or to be such a badass in the midst of combat. I scrambled to keep my head on straight while he fearlessly plunged into battle, greeting the man I’d shot in the hand with a closed fist. Everett’s packmates and I followed shortly after. I stood over the man bleeding from his ankle, and thinking of nothing else but wrath for the monsters who attacked my pack, I kicked him hard in the ribs. The dragon scowled and rolled onto his hands and knees, but Everett’s packmate booted him from the other side. I knelt on his back and wrenched his hands behind him, and my companion yanked the man’s shirt up and pulled it down his arms, tying it tight around his wrists. We left him on his stomach. I stood up just in time to see Everett come out of the struggle with his opponent, his hands on the man’s ears, sharply cranking his head to the side. The man crumbled lifelessly.

My eyes widened. Everett stared down at his dead foe, gunmetal gaze devoid of feeling. “Come on,” he said coldly, urging us back to the car.

There was no time for us to find a detour. Disregarding the damage to his Lexus—it already sustained a series of bullet holes—he maneuvered around the two cars, barely clinging to the shoulder and avoiding falling into the ditch, before we continued on. My parents’ house was deep in a residential bay. All the houses we passed had their lights on, their inhabitants hiding in terror at the sound of gunshots. As we drove past, some people became brave enough to stand outside, looking for the source of the mayhem, and I felt sick imagining what casualties might have formed by a stray bullet. Even thinking about the dragons we took down made me nauseous. I was proud that I had helped take down the one man, but the man Everett shot in the chest might not survive—and the one whose neck he broke was most certainly dead. Everett had killed two dragons already. I never imagined him capable of such a thing, and peeking over at him, I wondered if it even affected him. He stared firmly at the road.

The house was up ahead. David’s truck, my mother’s car, and three more vehicles were scattered in front of it. Fire was clawing its way out of the living room windows.

Everett pulled over, but immediately we were accosted by gunfire. We all ducked down, hiding beneath the windshield as glass shattered around us. He reached out for me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, trembling.

“We have to get inside. Is there a back door?”

“You’ll have to go around the side and through the gate.”

“Let’s take care of the guys out front, first.”

I’d never been in a fight like this before. All of my training still couldn’t have prepared me for the sheer terror of this brutality. My body screamed at me to run and hide, but my family was out there under attack, and I knew I had to do something or else they could die without my help. Swallowing down my fear, I kicked open the passenger door and slipped out, running amid gunshots back behind the car. Everett and his two packmates joined me there, but one of them had taken a hit to the calf. He slumped and clutched the wound. “Just stay right here,” Everett told him. “Don’t move.”

We were down to three. I didn’t even know what had happened to his other packmates and the Mythguard snipers that went in the other car, but squinting across the night—illuminated by the yellow streetlights and the orange fire mounting from my parents’ house—I saw what looked like the aftermath of a scrap near the driveway. More bodies strewn across the pavement.

“Are you ready?” Everett prompted.

I wasn’t ready, nor did I think I would ever be ready, but I nodded and fell back into the same pattern we’d employed before. With my gun ready, I poked out and fired at the people firing on us. I nailed somebody in the neck and wanted to cry out in relief, but shock kept me silent. Then we retreated and the gunfire ceased. When Everett looked out from behind the car, he scowled. “I can’t see anyone else. We have no choice but to move forward.”

Everything was happening so quickly. I darted out after Everett while sirens blared in the distance, firetrucks or police or ambulances—I couldn’t tell. Probably all three. We skirted around the side of the house, where the fence came up into a gate nestled against the stucco exterior. The gate hung wide open. My house, once so familiar and comforting, seemed like a foreign entity now, looming darkly in the night. Inside, I heard crashing and shouting. We pushed past the gate and ended up in my backyard, where two jet-black dragons were tearing apart the carcass of one of the Mythguard’s humans. Blood and gore were cast through the grass, the stench of steaming viscera suffocating. I slapped my palm over my mouth to keep from gagging.

Everett reacted faster than me. He drew his gun and fired at one of the dragons, tearing a hole in its wing. Then it lunged at him and took him down. “Ev!” I screamed, running for him, but couldn’t aim and fire fast enough. The second dragon leaped for me, catching my midsection and pummeling me into the ground. The impact knocked the gun out of my hand, sending it flying into the grass. I landed with a hard “Oof!” on my back, the monstrous reptile leering above me.

I had nothing to defend myself with. No teeth or nails. No gun. Just my bare hands, and I feared it wouldn’t be enough against the monster that had pinned me down. Its massive, clawed hand gripped my arm while its long neck bent above me, jaws unhinged. Rows of yellowing teeth glinted in the firelight as it screeched, the sound sinking straight through my body and reverberating between my bones. Gasping, I turned my head away from the rancid stench of its hot breath. When it tried to close its teeth over my head, I shoved my arm up to protect myself. My arm got caught in its fangs, rending my flesh into ribbons with blinding pain. I wasn’t strong enough to hold it back. The dragon pushed down on me, gnashing my arm before tossing it aside and opening me up for attack.

Everett’s packmate leaped in, catching the dragon’s neck in his arms. Its claws peeled off of my arm and I suddenly could move my upper body again—but I didn’t think it would be enough for me to get free. It stepped on me, taking the breath from my lungs before thrashing away, trying to shake off the Eastpeak wolf. I hurt everywhere. Blood rushed down my arm, the flesh a tattered mess. Still, I managed to pull my legs out and staggered to my feet, watching the dragon throw my companion aside. Frantically searching the yard, I spotted the shed in the far corner. My parents always kept it locked. But if I could get inside, I’d at least have a weapon to use, since I didn’t know where the gun was.

Stumbling to the shed, I looked over my shoulder to find the dragon jabbing at Everett’s packmate. The other dragon was wrestling with Everett, gunshots occasionally illuminating the scene in vivid flashes. I focused on the shed, kicking the door with panicked urgency until my foot crashed through the wood. A few more kicks, and I had broken off the latch on the door to get inside. It was dark, but I knew what I was looking for. A shovel sat up against the wall.

Grabbing my new weapon, I went back to the two dragons. The Eastpeak wolf continued fighting valiantly against the one that pinned me. I swung the shovel at its head, hitting it in the temple and sending it sideways. The dragon screeched. Angry, I screamed back at it.

All I could do was keep swinging and hope that I would make purchase. Even as the dragon lunged at me, I rotated the shovel to slam its sharp metal edge into the side of the dragon’s neck. The shovel cleaved into its flesh and dislodged ropes of thick crimson. It braced itself with flared wings and thrust its maw at my unwounded arm, grabbing my bicep and jerking me down. I lost balance and dropped the shovel. The dragon then reared back and dragged me forward, flapping its wings. With the uncoiling of its great muscles, the beast launched skyward, lifting me off the ground with my arm still in its mouth.

“Fuck!” I shouted, feeling the strain. The dragon made it ten feet into the air before dropping me. The ground hit me all too quickly, and the collision left me stunned, gasping for breath. Both of my arms ached. I could barely move them as I laid on my back, looking down at the dragon hovering above me. Its body came sailing down at me once more. Shadows surrounded me, the darkness of its body and its massive wings engulfing me as its weight crushed my chest. Claws dug viciously into my shoulders. Its teeth arched above my face, strands of saliva dropping into my eyes.

The dragon was inches from ripping my face off.

The last thing I heard was a harrowing bang.